there is a longing
in everything
a longing in the stones
and a longing in the trees
concealed
within the apple’s sweetened pith:
there is a brownish clove of apple-seed
that, undisturbedly, sleeps
with its murmur of branches hissing
in the breezes of centuries to come
and we discern
early-morning hunger in this line of crows;
in the shuffle of wings; the hop and stagger
of talons on the cold station walls
driving in today
and round bales of hay had been spread
out beneath the roundness of the frost moon
a dark hawk circuited in the deadly white
of sea-harr drifting up from shore
and I thought I saw
pagodas soar in the crimson rent of daybreak:
their blue and purple roof-tiles curling
like aching fingers on the sky’s flushed palm
still the wings are whirling
and without a call the birds of prey
swoop and dive determinedly
through siftings of celestial light
moonlight and sunlight
light flush on water and crisp on hay
and all this without saying
what secret engine makes
each mechanism run
what makes the shadows
of blackbirds fleet
from the garret’s darkness?
what makes the crane
explore the water’s brink?
and I think if only
one thing from nature spoke
I would understand at once
what longs
and what can satisfy
what seeker’s hand reaches
for the moon; or for the sun
what light it is that cools;
and what light burns
like trees
that cover travellers
in a cloak of tender shade
like stones
that sing through the open air
in a crackle of ecstatic prayer
* * * * *
B.T. Joy is a Glaswegian poet currently living in Bridge of Weir; where he teaches High School English. He received a First Class Honours degree in Creative Writing and Film Studies in 2009 at London Metropolitan University and has, since then, had poetry published in Australian, Irish, American, British, Japanese and Hongkongese journals. He is also the author of two volumes of haiku In The Arms Of The Wind and The Reeds That Tilt The Sky, published in 2010 and 2011 respectively. His haiga have appeared with the World Haiku Association, Haiga Online and Daily Haiga. In 2012 he was awarded a Postgraduate Diploma in Education by the University of Strathclyde as part of the last cohort to undergo teacher education at Jordanhill College.
Guest edited by Michael Fitzgerald-Clarke
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